Low calorie diet drinks and foods ‘trick the brain into making you fatter’ and could trigger diabetes, study claims

DIET drinks and foods trick the brain into making you fatter and could even trigger diabetes, a study suggests.

The body has evolved to burn more calories if something tastes sweet because in nature sweeter substances contain more energy.

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But diet products that do not taste sweet confuse the brain into thinking there are fewer calories to burn than there are.

This causes the body’s metabolism to drop, storing up the products as fat, claim researchers at Yale University, US.

Senior author Prof Dana Small said: “A calorie is not a calorie.

“When sweet taste and energy are not matched, less energy is metabolised and inaccurate signals go to the brain. Either may affect metabolic health.”

Scientists scanned the brains of 15 people on diet drinks and others on regular ones.

They also monitored how much energy was burned and found that when there was a “mismatch”, the brain did not register calories had been consumed, which could lead to eating more.

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But Professor Tom Sanders, of King’s College London, said: “Saying a calorie is not a calorie is gobbledegook.”